# The Passion to Learn: An inquiry into Lifelong Learning

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**Keyterms:**

**Theme:**

**Thesis:**

**Keypoints:**

**Summary:**

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## Introduction

*Obs: This section is too short to warrant a full review.*

**Summary:**

The book is a collection of texts written by 15 people with insights regarding
learning and autodidactism. Further, it presents some important theories
regarding self-directed learning, besides also reviewing the whole body of work
of each participant on the book.

## Chapter 1, Theories of learning and the range of autodidactism

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**Keyterms**

Autodidacts, autodidactism, learning, learn, theories, resistance, autonomy,
defiant constructivism, conceptual change, surface learning, deep learning, Jan
Amos Comenius, politically emancipatory education, situated learning, adult
learning.

**Theme:**

Presents general theories regarding learning while trying to tie them
to autodidactism.

**Thesis:**

Since this a overview of many works regarding learning, there is no overral
thesis in the chapter, but a collection of theses in each section. They are:

**Keypoints:**

**Summary:**

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### What is an autodidact?

- Autodidacts prefer to be learn a particular way, by discovering the knowledge
  on their own. This, generally, leads to friction with education system.

- The drive for self-oriented learning has roots on our innate curiosity.

- There is, perhaps, knowledge that is acquired in a very primal way through our
  bodies. A more visceral and instinctual manner of learning with roots on
  survival. Some habilities (such as swimming or judging measurements by eye)
  are acquired through this method. But acquiring skills is the most efficient
  when this methodology is coupled with verbal learning.

### The start of human learning

- Köhler's apes experiment, autodidactism as precursor mechasism for learning.

- Experiment with children by Vigotsky, internalisation of visual field (similar
  to Hodgkin's conceptual space) by unity of perception, speech and action.

- Learning by reflection is the more mature form of self-talk.

- Wolfgang Köhler conducted experiments with apes showing that they could learn
  from their imaginative efforts and ocasionally by imitation, but they never
  directly taught one another. Thus, autodidactism might be the early mechanism
  for learning.

### Tales of autodidacts

- Sugestion of connection between defiant behaviour and autodidactism.

- Two stories, a gifted student and another with down syndrome, both showing a
  resistance to being taught.

### Elaboration of theories

- For Piaget, trasformation of is the mark of intelligence. Not only to make
  something new, but also to reverse what put before you.

- No space for autodidactism in Piaget's view of learning (an increasing logical
  process that we mature into).

- Vygotsky saw children as *elaborators* and not merely receivers.

- Difficulty of absorbing new ideas pertaining to learning by the education
  system.

### Research into student learning

- Body of research done into "surface learning" and "deep learning".

- Research showing the understanding of students, months after being taught,
  lowering or increasing. The increase, without any other intervention, could
  be evidence for autodidactism. Further, more research sugests either student
  reflection or a complex neural activity encourages this learning.

- Deep learning, as research by John Biggs, correlates with intelligence (as
  meausured by IQ tests) and wanting to in control of one's activity. This, in
  turn, sugests autodidactism.

### Constructivism and conpceptual change

- Conceptual change, a big interest in the educational world, is transforming
  student's concepts into the ones backed by science. Construtivism is the
  understanding of phenonema (in the learning space) without scientific
  background.

- Research was done on employing constructivism in the classroom. In it,
  necessarily, we see some manners of autodidactism in the students.
  Nevertheless, learning through construtivism was a dead end. Also, some more
  research showed that less authoritarian instructors coupled with less dense
  material overally helped with learning.

### From liberty to logic?

- Freedom was commonly denied to the children in general and in education. An
  exception to this rule is Jan Amos Comenius, who summarized his life's work in
  education in three principles:

    1. Proceed by (small) stages.
    2. Examine everything yourself without submitting to authority (or "autopsy"
       as Comenius puts it).
    3. Act on your impulsion (or "autopraxy", as Comenius puts it).

- Lasting influence on the american educational system done by Bejamin Franklin,
  an inventor and (perhaps necessarily) an autodidact.

- Possible tendency in autodidacts with comedy, riddles and jokes.

### Critical political education

- Learning has ties to politics. Chartism, the first working class movement in
  Britain, seeked knowdledge of the practical kind. They, and many other
  movements, searched for learning going beyond the reductivist words of John
  Dewey.

- Influential authors like Illich and Freire argued for an education socially
  and politically emancipatory education. Though, the emphasis put into "action
  which was to becmoe a preoccupation to the masses", treaded on invidual
  judgement so important to the autodidact. Later, Henry Giroux would encourage
  bringing relevant topic to the students and then "make their voices heard".

### Education in the working group

- Learning is at least in part a social process and understanding the concept of
  self aids in understanding autodidactism.

- We are constantly adujusting and readjusting ourselfves during interaction.

- Learning is easier if the individual can disappear into a setting, as a
  apprendice, for example. Though, on programs who offered just that,
  autodidacts usually struggled with the rigid structure; also some
  preoccupation existed with the stagnation of knowledge in the courses.

- Our identity shapes our learning. If we are learning in a social setting, what
  motivates us for learning primarily is the ties the setting (or the work) has
  with our identity, this is called "situated learning". Frequently, we see
  ourselves as what we work on.

- Situated learning programs rarely, if ever, concern themselfves with teaching
  the person as whole. Autodidacts might find themselves unsatisfied without
  elements of wider learning and problem solving.

### First approaches to adult learning in "the learning society"

- Few attempts to teach adults before 1950s, except in higher education.

- Poor and frequentily inacessbile education in universities.

- Concerns (expressed by Michael Young and Torsten Husén) that the barriers to
  education will create a large contigent of people only able to take menial and
  intermittent employment. These concerns were validated at the year 2000.

- Two important questions: can learning keep up with technologies? And how age
  affects learning capacity?

- Liam Hudson and others found no correlation between academic achievement and
  life sucess. Further, life sucess with low academic achievement might sugest
  autodidactism.

- Is the online space (through distance learning) enough for autodidacts?
